Furniture

Bertoia Two-Tone Side Chairs in Knoll Showroom at Merchandise Mart in Chicago, Illinois, 1953.

Anonymous, plastic and cheap, the monobloc can be found on many front porches, beachside cabanas and cookouts around the world. A modernist's dream, the chair makes up for its lack of personality with its ability to be mass produced using a minimal amount of materials.

Designed by Hans J. Wegner in 1956, the CH20 exemplifies the designer's explorations with molded veneer. The seat is made from 11 layers of it, and can be topped with fabric or leather. Bonus? It stacks—making it the perfect solution for smaller spaces.

Modu-licious #6 Drawers and doors are your canvas with the award-winning Modu-licious series. Choose from white, grey blue, red, ivory, slate and robin's egg blue to create your own look.

Emeco debuted the minimalist Run collection by Sam Hecht and Kim Colin. The system of storage units, tables, and benches are modular and designed to pair with all of the brand's existing chairs.

Hella Jongerius / Jongeriuslab in Berlin

A late 1970s ad for the MP-163 armchair and footrest (1976): Dubbed the “Earth Chair” by retailer Brazil Contempo, it was Lafer’s first design to feature an inner structural steel frame.

At the Fritz Hansen factory in Denmark, a worker inspects the paint finish of a Series 7 chair in front of a wall displaying just some of the wood and color options available.

Here's how a designer makes money: One day she dreams up a chair. She spends months developing the concept, selecting materials, devising the exact curve of the arm, the dip of the back. Satisfied with the piece, she works with a manufacturer to produce it. The manufacturer refines the design, invests in tooling to build it, promotes it, and gets it to market. You, the consumer, buy it. This is an original, authentic design. We discuss why knockoff furnishings may be cheap, but for the design industry, they come with a heavy price.

In 1954 Japanese designer Sori Yanagi (1915-2011) created a stackable fiberglass piece called the "Elephant Stool" for Kotobuki, so called for its resemblance to an elephant's foot. Surviving authentic versions should have two aluminum labels glued to the underside—one featuring the manufacturer's logo and the other marked "Made in Japan".

In the early 1970s, Vico Magistretti (1920-2006) created the Vicario, a wide molded fiberglass lounge chair, for Artemide. The next year it was exhibited as part of the hugely influential MOMA exhibition “Italy: the New Domestic Landscape.”

The Round Chair, 1949, by Hans J. Wegner (1914-2007) was sometimes just referred to by the designer as "the round one" and catapulted him to the global design stage. Wegner was plucked from design school after only two years to work for architects Erik Møller and Arne Jacobsen, and this piece reflects his interest in Chinese furniture, as well as his interpretation of traditional Danish rounded-back chairs.

Before her education at the School of Arts, Crafts and Design, Grete Jalk (1920-2006) trained as a cabinetmaker and experimented widely with industrial furniture and products. She was a pupil of Kaare Klint. One of her major preoccupations was the exploration of laminated wood—this curiosity led to her 1963 Bow Chair, which is bent in only one plane, but the two connected parts make the chair appear to be stressed to the point of breaking.